With that in mind, anything—anything—that legitimized the GDR to the international community would receive top priority. Thus, Mr. Collins had concocted a particularly brilliant scheme: use The Dead Weights’ unapologetic pro-GDR punk music to put a bug in the Stasi’s ear. They had quickly found a point-man in Matt York (an asset on loan from British intelligence), who, much like Lena, had a seriously tweaked view of what counted as ‘fun’. All that was necessary was to crank out a few mindless tunes (written by some bored analyst, of course) and find a few disposable patsies as band-mates. Then, they need only broadcast it far and wide—via Armed Forces Radio and the many other pirate radio stations—to the GDR’s various ‘rooftop radios’ like the one Lena had.
Unlike the punks in Leipzig, Mr. Collins not only knew that the Stasi closely monitored the pirate radio stations, but counted on it. He knew that the Stasi would like the favorable opinion that citizens of the GDR would give to the anti-capitalist Dead Weights and their hatred of American interference.
Now Mr. Collins only needed to put a few more strategic bricks in the operational wall, and his organization would be well set. Firstly, to finagle Matt (and his manager, of course) a guided tour of the GDR; second, to establish a plausible reason Matt would actually want to stay in the GDR; and third, perhaps… just perhaps… he could be swayed by the same methods that ensnared Dean Reed just a few years before: a burgeoning (and scandalously perfect) relationship between King Punk himself and the up-and-coming counterculture goddess Madeline Dangerbunny. Of course, what happened after that was not something Lena was privy to just yet.
Hooking up with Matt York was the easy part. The second was far more difficult for many different reasons. First, because it required her to snoop around ‘her people’ in the HVA—you know, ask some potentially telling questions of people who were good at detecting ‘potentially telling questions’; second, because she would likely have to ask these questions of Grandfather, whom she hadn’t seen in such a long time; and third, because they were questions pertaining to Hans.
Apparently, Hans had never been a spitzel, as Lena had assumed. Well, not as she knew it anyway. Hans had been working for Mr. Collins and his company for a number of months. To his company, though, that wasn’t the important part; the important part was that Hans was in a small network of hard-cultivated assets that had been working in Eastern Germany for several years now. The fact that Hans had been caught could potentially lead to the destruction of that network, as well as the people within it. Mr. Collins had said that it was very likely that Hans had already talked. Yet since the network still existed, one of two things was true: either Hans had kept his tongue, or the Soviet’s and HVA’s concurrent counter-intelligence investigations were still ongoing.
According to Mr. Collins, the only thing working in their favor was the fact that “the HVA doesn’t like the damn Soviets poking around in their business”, and their premature raid had spooked the network into a defensive holding pattern, effectively placing them on standby. This made their survival more likely, but it also made them ‘mission ineffective’. Now, the members of the network would have to be “liberated or re-prioritized,” as Mr. Collins had put it.
This all sounded utterly fantastic—really it did. The only problem was that she seemed to be the linchpin for all of this nonsense. Everyone expected poor Lena to be an expert in all things clandestine at this point. It was as if they expected her to sky-hook off of a space-ship in low orbit, destabilize a few governments, and maybe drive one of those cool Western sportscars with the heat-seeking rocket-launchers, all while understanding all of this damnable intrigue without even being told anything. Damn it, she was only one person! Besides, she had something far more pressing to deal with: getting Vivika and Victor to calm the hell down.
“…the hell is your problem?” Victor was still shouting.
“I’m not going crazy here!” Vivika shouted back, “Lena, you know what I’m talking about, right?”
“Totally,” Lena said, absent-mindedly, realizing she hadn’t been listening.
“Thank you. See, Victor, this is why this is all your fault.”
“Okay, fine,” Victor fumed. “If accepting all of the blame is what it takes to get you to shut up, then I accept it. All of it. I’m the reason everything in the world is wrong, and I’m sorry. Are we done now?”
“Oh, how typical,” Vivika seethed. “Placate the woman. Look at me, I’m just a poor little woman! Of course, I’m being out of sorts. Heaven forbid a weak little woman calls a big strong man out on how he was the one that utterly failed!”
“It’s not because you’re a woman; it’s because you’re stupid! I know plenty of women that would see the situation for what it is, instead of trying to…”
“Oh why don’t you two just get a room.” Lena cut in.
Silence reigned for a few precious and awkward seconds. Vivika looked at Victor, and he looked back at her. Both seemed at a loss for words, and there seemed to be a tension that Lena couldn’t quite understand.
“I mean, seriously,” Lena flailed her arms above her head, “you two argue like a damned married couple. Victor…” she said, turning to him, “You’re an idiot. You obviously work for the Stasi. Any punk band that goes across the wall gets one of ‘your people’ to babysit them. Instead of doing that, you took us to a strange country and left us to fend for ourselves because you were too weak to do your job. Shame on you.”
Turning to Vivika, she continued, “And you… you…” Lena realized that she didn’t have anything negative to say about her; but she was irritated so she just made a few things up, “You won’t shut up about the whole thing. We’re here. This is what’s happening now. We can’t go back there. And look, I’m sorry that I found Matt, but maybe if you weren’t so bitchy…”
“Lena, stop,” Vivika said plainly.
“No, I’m serious. You’re a wonderful friend, but you have this chip on your shoulder for some reason, and I think it’s because you’re jealous.”
“Lena… stop.”
“It’s not a big deal! Really, it isn’t! But taking out your frustrations on Victor isn’t going to help.”
Vivika suddenly began crying for no apparent reason. She just stared into Lena’s eyes with such a desperate and utterly defeated look. Lena had no idea what was going on, but she all of a sudden felt terrible about it.
“Women,” Victor sighed, “once a month, they all go fucking crazy.”
“You…” Vivika seethed tearfully at Victor, and then to Lena, “You… both of you…” She never continued her sentence. Instead, she swung open the door to the van which was still moving, and demanded, “Stop the fucking van, Victor!”
“You crazy bitch!” Victor yelled as he slammed on the brakes, “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I’ll make my own way!”
“Vivika, what’s wrong?!” Lena shouted, but to no avail. Vivika simply stepped out and walked off into the distance, not looking back even once.
“What was that all about?” Lena raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Victor shook his head, “She’s just had a hard few days. But hey, at least you and I can speak openly for a moment.”
“Okay, fine, but just so you know, I’m mad at you right now.”